Welcome to the IEA Weekend Newsletter

• A good day for the IEA
• In Linda we Trustee!
• THINK about it...
• i on the Media
• The morality of tax cuts
• Best of the Blog
• A big thank you...
• You’re Invited...
• Photo of the week

A good day for the IEA

This week, the Official Warning issued to the Institute of Economic Affairs was withdrawn by the Charity Commission, with immediate effect.



The Warning was issued earlier this year for the IEA’s publication and launch of a trade paper, Plan A+.

On Thursday the Warning was withdrawn, and the Charity Commission has made an undertaking to remove the Warning from its website.

Chairman of the IEA’s Board of Trustees Neil Record said:

“The Institute of Economic Affairs is delighted that the Charity Commission has decided to withdraw the Official Warning with immediate effect.

“I am greatly looking forward to working with the Charity Commission in the months and years ahead.”

A good day for the IEA!

In Linda we Trustee!

We are delighted to welcome Linda Edwards as a new member of the IEA Board of Trustees.

Linda is a US citizen and UK citizen who attended law school in Texas before practising mergers and acquisitions law at Latham & Watkins in Los Angeles.

She retired from law on moving to London, and has since lived around the world, from Hong Kong to Dubai, involving herself in organisations spreading Classical Liberal ideas.

Linda has had a long relationship with the Cato Institute, also supporting the Reason Foundation, the Atlas Network and the Instituto Bruno Leoni.

Welcome Linda! 

THINK about it...

Next Saturday, THINK will bring together some of the most prominent and thought-provoking economists from all over the world to speak about a vast range of topics from international development to the sharing economy.

 

THINK - aimed predominantly at the under 30s - provides fascinating insights into new ideas, changing the way attendees think about the world and the major challenges it faces.

Attendees will hear from world-renowned economists on the day, including Joanna Willams, Rainer Zitelmann and Deirdre McCloskey.

You can take advantage of a £15 discount for those using the code ‘McCloskey’. 

We still have a few tickets left! Click here to get yours before they run out!

i on the Media

Jack-pot… IEA research on cannabis was quoted in the Independent this week, as police officers discovered £3m of marijuana in a disused Bingo hall. The IEA report, Joint Venture, estimated the size of the market and its potential taxable revenue.

Booze news… Christopher Snowdon, Head of Lifestyle Economics, branded Labour plans to force beer and wine to carry new, smoking-style health warnings “a definite no-no”. Quoted in The Sun and the Daily Star, Chris said adults did not need “scary stickers” telling them how much is too much.

London falling… Chris was also quoted in the Times, Telegraph and Daily Express on the economic reasons people are moving away from London, and was quoted in The Sun about the government’s childhood obesity strategy.



Big zero... “Fatuous at best and irresponsible at worst” was Chris’ take on net zero emissions legislation in an article for the Telegraph. Meanwhile, our Director General Mark Littlewood and Head of Transport Richard Wellings also criticised the target, with Mark appearing on talkRADIO and Richard quoted in Transportation Professional.

List-en up… Mark also responded to the announcement by Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell of plans to delist companies on environmentalist grounds. He explained in the Daily Mail and City AM that “socialist governments have an appalling record on the environment compared with their pro-capitalist counterparts.” 

Pro-regressive… IEA Associate Director Kate Andrews wrote for the Sunday Express on why the next Government should prioritise tax cuts. Mark also wrote his regular column for The Times on tax, asking who has the political courage to make the case for tax cuts for the rich.

Nothing to laugh at… With ITV’s ban on all-male comedy writing teams, Kate Andrews wrote for Spectator Coffee House and Head of Communications Nerissa Chesterfield spoke to Sky News. Kate described the move as ‘pointless virtue-signaling’, while Nerissa cited examples to show that the decision was unnecessary.

Private business… Kate also used her City AM columns to urge the government to scrap the ‘porn pass’ and to explain how Jeremy Hunt’s plans for student loan write-offs for entrepreneurs miss the mark on encouraging new businesses.

Revolutionary talk… Our Head of Political Economy Kristian Niemietz broke down the Left’s increasingly ambiguous attitude towards Cuban socialism in CapX, and discussed the example of Venezuela for ConservativeHome.

City AM also quoted his response to plans to speed up planning permission, also calling for the system to be made more permissive.

Those wanting a deeper dive into the previous examples of socialism, and the arguments used, should check out Kristian’s recent book 'Socialism - the failed idea that never dies'.

Tax return… Economics Fellow Julian Jessop exposed the problems with the EU’s planned ‘tech tax’ in CapX, highlighting his recent research for the IEA’s initiative EPICENTER.

Trade talk… Head of the IEA’s Financial Services Unit Catherine McBride spoke to BBC Business Briefing about the ongoing trade war between China and the United States, and TRT World about the future of economic growth.

Out and about… With Brexit still dominating the headlines, IEA staff continued to make the case for future free market trade policies. Mark Littlewood appeared on CNN International to discuss the Brexit positions of the Conservative leadership contenders, and Richard Wellings spoke to Die Welt about the consequences of ‘no deal’.

Headline acts… Kate Andrews and Communications Manager Emma Revell discussed recent headlines, appearing on paper reviews for Sky News and talkRADIO respectively.

The morality of tax cuts

The latest IEA podcast discusses the UK's tax burden, what tax cuts politicians seem to want to make, and how to make the case for tax cuts with the public.


 

The IEA's Digital Manager Darren Grimes invited the IEA's Director General Mark Littlewood and Associate Director Kate Andrews to debate how we make the moral case for a slimmer tax rulebook, and a significantly less complex one at that.

Listen to the podcast here, and subscribe to our iTunes channel, IEA Conversations.

Best of the Blog

Lies, damned lies and statistics… Editorial Fellow Professor Len Shackleton took issue with the employment of statistics in the media, and the desire to fit them into existing narratives.

Picking up specifically on the idea of a boom in jobs for older workers, he demonstrated that the apparent increase was more likely an artifact of demographic changes, coupled with a high degree of ‘churn’ in the labour market.

Read the full blog here. 

A big thank you...

… to everyone who entered for the first stage of the 2019 Richard Koch BREAKTHROUGH PRIZE!

By Thursday’s deadline, we’d received more than 250 entries from across the UK and beyond, each with a suggestion for the best single, free-market policy that could enable more people, irrespective of background, to succeed on their own merit.

Successful candidates from the first round will be shortlisted, and the judges – headed this year by Dominic Raab MP – will be asking them to develop their ideas into a more detailed 3,000-4,000 word essay. 

The eventual winners will be announced at a special awards ceremony in central London in October 2019. Stay tuned! 

You're Invited...

On the money...

IEA Fellow Professor Pedro Schwartz will be delivering a series of lectures on monetary theory at the University of Buckingham in July and August, in partnership with the Institute of International Monetary Research.



The lectures will cover the institution and ‘Quantity Theory’ of money on the 16th and 17th of July, and money in an open economy and central banking on the 31st of July and 1st of August.

These lectures will be free to attend and promise to be highly interesting for specialists and non-specialists alike, and will place monetary theory and developments in the context of historical thought and events.

For more information, and to confirm your attendance, click here.

Photo of the week

Thanks Twitter! 



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